Absorbent articles having defined core regions and chassis regions are supposed to have a comfortable fit about the wearer. For pant articles like pant diapers, sanitary pants and incontinence pants it is also desirable that the articles are capable of being pulled up and down over the hips of the wearer to allow the wearer or caregiver to easily put on and remove the article when it has been soiled. Furthermore, it is important that the absorbent article can be put on and taken off without breaking or puncturing, for instance by fingernails. It is known to make such absorbent pants with elasticized stretchable side panels and waist portion, usually comprising elastic members, such as elastic threads, contractably affixed between the backsheet and the topsheet.
It is further known to make portions of the chassis of absorbent articles of an elastic material, such as stretch-bonded laminates. Such laminates may include a layer of meltblown elastomeric fibers which have been stretched and sandwiched between outer layers of spunbonded webs.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,552,245 discloses an extensible outer cover for an absorbent article which provides a certain permanent deformation when subjected to a tensile force. The extensible outer cover comprises a necked laminate in the form of one layer of a necked non-elastic film and one layer of a non-elastic film. The films may be breathable.
WO 03/047488 discloses an elastic laminate comprising an elastic film which on opposite sides is bonded to first and second non-elastic fibrous layers. The laminate is made by bonding the non-elastic fibrous layers to the elastic film layer and subsequently stretching the composite material, causing the non-elastic materials to break. The elastic film material may be of a breathable material. The laminate may be incorporated in an absorbent article. No mention is made of the puncture resistance of such a material. The process described in WO 03/047488 will give a material which is soft and elastic, but which on the other hand has low resistance to puncturing, as the broken outer nonwoven layers will make no contribution to the puncture resistance of the laminate.
US2003/0022582 describes a laminate in which an elastomeric film is bound between two or more layers of nonwoven webs. The laminate is said to be particularly useful in elastic diaper “ears” that can be stretched to accommodate variously sized wearers. It is stated that nonwoven materials provide little or no puncture resistance, hence the any puncture resistance which the laminate has will be almost exclusively due to the puncture resistance of the elastomeric film.
Further examples of absorbent articles which in part are made of elastic laminates are found in U.S. Pat. No. 6,476,289 and JP 10043235.
There is however still room for improvement with respect to the strength of such laminates, particularly with respect to their resistance to puncture. The comfort, fit and cloth-like feel of absorbent articles of the above-mentioned type is also important.